On the evening of February 19th, ESEG – Faculdade do Grupo Etapa – held a keynote lecture on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its impact on business and careers. The event took place in the auditorium of the Ana Rosa Campus and was attended by students, professors, and enthusiasts of the subject.
To welcome those present, Professor José Guilherme Campos, coordinator of the Administration course, greeted the audience and reinforced the importance of the topic in the corporate world, in addition to highlighting the important work being developed by the Career Development Center, the employability area of ESEG. “We relentlessly pursue employability and prepare our students for the challenges of today, whether national or international. Therefore, tonight we bring a topic of essential discussion for those who wish to be involved in the current and future market: the use of Artificial Intelligence, better known as AI, which has been growing consistently in business,” explained the professor.
The first speaker of the evening was Marcel Saraiva, National Enterprise Sales Manager at NVIDIA, one of the world's leading technology companies and among the top 10 most valuable companies in the world. The executive highlighted the growing interest of names like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg in acquiring NVIDIA GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) for AI projects for their social networks, respectively, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
Saraiva also warned about the ethical challenges related to the development of AI, citing cases such as the recent scandal involving the illustration of Frankenstein, which was disqualified from the Jabuti Prize due to the use of an image creation tool.
The second presentation was given by Sandor Caetano, Chief Data Officer at PicPay and co-author of the book "The Scientist and the Executive." With extensive experience in Artificial Intelligence, having worked for companies such as iFood and Nubank, Sandor discussed the practical benefits of AI in the corporate environment, emphasizing its ability to optimize processes and free up human resources for more strategic activities.
Both speakers presented a variety of examples of AI use, ranging from positive applications, such as automating processes in restaurants using kiosks, to concerning issues, such as the potential for malicious programming and leaks of sensitive data.
For Gabriel Gutierrez, a Computer Engineering student at ESEG, the lectures were an enriching opportunity to learn from experts on the subject and prominent figures in the market.
“Although it’s not directly my field, I enjoy learning more about AI. I think it’s great that the Faculty is promoting a class with such prominent figures in the market. Besides meeting my expectations, the inaugural lecture provided a break from the week’s routine,” he highlighted.
Following the presentations, Sandor and Marcel participated in a question and answer session, where they clarified specific questions from the audience and highlighted the need for caution when regulating AI, arguing that current knowledge about its potential is still limited and premature regulation could hinder its development.
At the end of the event, attendees also participated in a raffle for copies of the book "The Scientist and the Executive," authored by Sandor Caetano and Diego Barreto.
